Red Rock Film Festival opens in Parowan
By Matt Marxteyn
Just weeks after the Utah Shakespeare Festival closed for the season, the Red Rock Film Festival is moving to The Beverley Center for the Arts in the Frehner Rehearsal Hall in Cedar City with an opening night in Parowan at the Parowan Community Theater (the old Aladdin Theatre) and with a change in pace is starting with international collegiate films first followed by full-length feature premieres later the next week. The opening night film and auction start at 7:30 p.m. at the Parowan Community Theater at 27 N. Main St. in Parowan, and a film fest party starts about two hours later at 197 W 200 S in Parowan. The rest of the films will be screened at The Beverley Center at 195 W. Center St. in Cedar City Nov. 7–10.
There was a continuing theme with the college films, and several films this year are either about the generation gap, family communication, or parents’ infidelity. These kids are really concerned about their parents and family members. Parents who thought they could “conveniently” wait until their college brood were done with finals to tell them they are getting a divorce may be one step behind.
From the Nina Vallado’s documentary short, “Sisterly,” where one sister tries to connect with her autistic sister who has lost her voice since the age of 2, to Stephanie Cheng’s short drama, “A Daughter,” about a daughter who discovers her dad’s infidelity, this theme becomes apparent.
Kyle Andrews’ “Chicken Killer” is about a conservative Christian couple who live off the grid with a mystery dog that kills a chicken every night.
“The film is inspired by the story of my mother, who chose to recede from the world with a man who feared and loathed it,” Andrews said.
Nick Markham’s “Reverie” is a psychological drama about a woman who reunites with her schizophrenic mother for the first time after 10 years, and the relationship in Joey Chu’s documentary “$30 to Antarctica” follows Ka Foon Chau, who grew up an impoverished child and built a life and career as a doctor who moved beyond the restrictive boundaries set by her parents’ generation. Now retired, she’s fulfilling a childhood dream: seeing Antarctica.
All of these student films will play opening night, interspersed with a huge bonus: As the Red Rock Film Festival has been big in the past with sports films, it will auction off ski vacations, rentals, ski-lift passes, and other items. The evening will end with another bonus for pass holders: a party at Hamburger Patty’s steakhouse in Parowan.
One student, Jordon Prince-Wright from Perth, had a different theme in mind. He went far beyond the goal of a student film and with co-director Axel August turned the student project into what is being considered one of Western Australia’s largest independent feature films. The film is an homage to the spaghetti westerns of the ’60s, complete with a cat-and-mouse chase, hangings, shootings, revenge, and murder but staying to the Red Rock Film Festival’s true colors with a theme of “a moral man having a conscience in an immoral world.” The film will have its U.S. premiere at the Red Rock Film Festival Nov. 8 at 9:30 p.m. and plays with a short modern Western directed by American Fork filmmaker Rob York.
Several other premieres are coming, such as the world premiere of Dayong Zhao’s documentary feature “One Says No!” about reports of the demolition of entire city districts in China that seem to belong to everyday life, evictions not having faced any significant resistance. What happens when, all of a sudden, one says “no” and refuses to leave his house? A surreal reality of a small apartment building surrounded by rumble manifests as the financial district and investors are ravenous to destroy it.
The family topic continues with the southern Utah premiere of Ben Niles’ “The 5 Browns: Digging through the Darkness” Nov. 7 at 7:15 p.m. The day will begin at 11 a.m. in Cedar with Mark Maxey’s feature music documentary “Up to Snuff” about W.G. Snuffy Walden, who started as a ’60s rocker and has since composed music for several TV shows from “The West Wing,” “Wonder Years,” and “thirtysomething.”
Tickets to the opening night films and auction are $10, and an opening night pass for dinner and the party is $30. Tickets are available at the door, online at redrockfilmfestival.com, or by calling (435) 705-5555. A limited number of passes are also available in Cedar City at Groovacious, Depot Grill, Pisco Peruvian, and La Fiesta Mexican Restaurant and in Parowan at Pizza Barn and Calvario’s Restaurant. A full schedule is available online at redrockfilmfestival.com.
